Gernot Wagner

Gernot Wagner is an expert in environmental science, public policy, economics, and government.

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He wrote Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet, jointly with Harvard’s Martin Weitzman. It was named a Top 15 Financial Times / McKinsey Business Book of the Year in 2015, and Austria’s Natural Science Book of the Year 2017. With his impeccable economic credentials and his informed, impassioned environmental advocacy, Gernot helps readers understand that we need to think about climate change in the same way that we think about insurance — as a risk management problem, only on a global scale. He is also the author of But Will the Planet Notice? (Hill and Wang/Farrar Strauss & Giroux).

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"Witty, far-ranging, and literate… always informed by a deep understanding of the complexities of economics."

— New York Review of Books on Climate Shock

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Gernot is the author of the book, Geoengineering: The Gamble [1st Edition]. Gernot lays out realistic scenarios of a geoengineered future and the pathways available to steer the world toward a balanced climate policy portfolio.

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He is currently teaching at Columbia Business School. He was a clinical associate professor at New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies and associate professor at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service. He was the founding executive director of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program, a research associate at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and a lecturer on Environmental Science and Public Policy at Harvard.

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Wagner served as an economist at the Environmental Defense Fund for 8 years, most recently as its lead senior economist (2014 – 2016) and member of its Leadership Council (2015 – 2016).

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For audiences ranging from technologists to the general public, Gernot brings his fresh, lively vision to the issue of climate change and offering economically-sound, actionable solutions to what is arguably the most important issue of our time.

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He covered economics, energy, and the environment on the editorial board of the Financial Times. He is a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Green, the Wall Street Journal, Earther, The Guardian, Wired and many others. His academic credentials include a joint bachelor’s magna cum laude with highest honors in environmental science, public policy, and economics, and a master’s and Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard, as well as a master’s in economics from Stanford.

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